All About Books discussion

At chapter 23. Enjoying it immensely, even 'though it's a bit melodramatic for me (a word Dickens has used in the last few chapters in an aside to the reader).

Going back to Fagin, a character does refer to him: 'Don't you know the devil when he's got a great-coat on?'

Great plot developing as well as the strong characters. Must find out what happens next.

Thank for that quotation, John - I'll look out for it (don't think anyone can have said it yet!)

Melodrama, yes. Very much Dickens learning his craft.

Does anyone have favourite dramatisations? I love the 1948 film directed by David Lean. It has an amazing cast:

Alec Guinness as Fagin
Robert Newton as Bill Sikes
Kay Walsh as Nancy
John Howard Davies as Oliver Twist
Henry Stephenson as Mr. Brownlow
Francis L. Sullivan as Mr. Bumble
Anthony Newley as the Artful Dodger
Ralph Truman as Monks
Michael Dear as Noah Claypole, an undertaker's boy who angers Oliver
Diana Dors as Charlotte
Frederick Lloyd as Mr. Grimwig
Mary Clare as Mrs. Corney
Hattie Jacques as a pub singer

John Howard Davies, the scrap of a boy who played Oliver, worked for the BBC as a producer all his life; he often comes up in the credits at the end of a programme! He's unrecognisable as an adult though.

Arnold Bax wrote the music!

And reading the book I'm pleased at how much of the dialogue they preserved.

The other dramatisation I really like is a completely different kettle of fish. It's a TV adaptation from 1999, adapted by Alan Bleasdale who wrote quite a lot of extra material which he developed from hints in the book. Here's the cast:

Annette Crosbie as Mrs Bedwin
Marc Warren as Monks (a much expanded part)
Michael Kitchen as Mr Brownlow
Lindsay Duncan as Elizabeth Leeford (ditto)
Julie Walters as Mrs. Mann
David Ross as Mr Bumble
Sam Smith as Oliver Twist
Emily Woof as Nancy
Robert Lindsay as Fagin
Andy Serkis as Bill Sikes
Alex Crowley as the Artful Dodger
Keira Knightley as Rose Fleming
Isla Fisher as Bet
Liz Smith as Sally
Alun Armstrong as Mr Fleming
Tim Dutton as Edwin Leeford
Rosalind March as Mrs Corney
Iain Robertson as Woodcroft
Roger Lloyd Pack as Mr Sowerberry

There's a lot of back story in it before Dickens's action starts, and it runs at over 6 hours.

I've only seen extracts from the David Lean film, and nothing else. I see that Keira Knightley is in the 1999 mini-series, so I need to look out for that!

I see there was a 2005 Roman Polanski film with Ben Kingsley, with limited release in the USA.

Yes, that was quite good too :) I still prefer these two though. (I did think of you as I edited that cast list, John. I daren't miss out Keira Knightley LOL)

Jean - LOL!

I love the 1948 David Lean film - I haven't seen the 1999 version. I am not a Polanski fan, so I feel no compulsion to see that one.

I am far along - Chapter 41.

I had totally forgotten Mr. Brownlow's friend Mr. Grimwig (who likes to say he will eat his head). What a great minor character!

As to Fagin, I can't feel that he is as villainous as some others in the book...

I too think that Fagin is multilayered, as I went into in comments 202 and 203. A capitalist extolling the work ethic? A devil? A benefactor? (bit of a long shot that one - but what would have happened to those boys had he not taken them in?) Thief, swindler and fence? And of course there is more to come :)

As I remember, there are clues in the novel that he has his origins in circus folk from Eastern Europe. Apart from the long cloak and flamboyant charades though, I haven't picked up any info as to that yet.

Yes, Mr Grimwig is delightfully curmudgeonly - but with a soft heart :) I always remember him saying he will eat his hat, and then am surprised that it is "eat my head"! Aren't Dickens's cameos superb though? Even with minor characters we always get a full description of what they look like and how they behave, even if they are in the novel for less than a page sometimes!

Oh, dear. Just gone past half way in Oliver Twist, ch30, and had to wipe away a tear at the breakfast table!

He is one for tugging at the heart-strings isn't he John? It can be very moving. I think Anthony Trollope scathingly called him "Mr Popular Sentiment" which I think is most unkind (though admittedly rather droll!)

Sometimes when his descriptions are particularly cloying I do wince a bit, but remember that they would have appealed to the audiences of the time when he did his wonderfully dramatic public readings. It's one from near the end of this book (don't unhide this if you don't know the story!!) (view spoiler)[Sikes's murder of Nancy (hide spoiler)] which is thought to have killed him in the end, as the public just couldn't get enough of it.

Oh, to have been there for one of his performances though :)

Well, I got to a point last night where it was too exciting to stop, so I am done now a bit ahead of schedule!

So what did you think Leslie? (You can comment under spoilers if you like, as I don't think Charbel has started yet, but a few of us know the story anyway.) I think there are signs of Dickens's immaturity - it's passionate and very highly-coloured - but those characters are built to last :) I love it!

I had a sudden thought. Does anyone here play the card game "pontoon" or "blackjack"? Or "vingt-et-un" (twenty-one) as it was originally known. If you ask the dealer for a card, what do you say? Yes, "Twist!" You ask for more by saying "twist"!

So I wondered which came first, the card game or the novel. It turns out that it's the game! It was a French gambling game popular at the court of Louis XV, and later favoured by Napoleon.

There's Dickens having a little joke with us then!! :D

Jean wrote: "So what did you think Leslie? (You can comment under spoilers if you like, as I don't think Charbel has started yet, but a few of us know the story anyway.) I think there are signs of Dickens's imm..."

I don't think that it will surprise anyone here that I really liked it! Vance did a pretty good job with the various voices in his narration. I guess that you are right that it shows signs of Dickens immaturity as an author, but I find his passion part of what I love about it.

Jean wrote: "I had a sudden thought. Does anyone here play the card game "pontoon" or "blackjack"? Or "vingt-et-un" (twenty-one) as it was originally known. If you ask the dealer for a card, what do you say? Ye..."

In Las Vegas (and I assume elsewhere in the U.S.A.), we say "Hit me". No ideas about the origins of that expression!

Leslie - Oh what a shame. I prefer "Twist"! Still, I expect the origins of "Hit me" may prove to be interesting too.

Yes Leslie, I agree it is passionate - a diatribe against social conditions and various institutions. Yet it is still full of humour! The great thing I'm finding about reading them in order is that the stages Dickens went through become so apparent. The Pickwick Papers was just so full of fun and "larks" - the humour came through all the boisterous characters and the ridiculous situations. At times it seemed very farcical, until the time when his beloved sister-in-law (in real life) died and then the book becomes more sober, with passages set in the Fleet prison.

Oliver Twist is different right from the start. Yes, Dickens's humour is there, but it is a very black biting humour. Sarcasm and irony are on every page; it's a far cry from Pickwick! Such a contrast :)

Just finished! As intimated earlier, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hard to say too much until all have finished it. But, it is over-melodramatic, and I don't think I can see Fagin as multifaceted - he seems a villain through and through. Mr Grimwig seems a complete failure to me - the humour just is not successful with him. Without 'spoiling' I think there is only one significant character who is not either all good or all bad, and the unravelling of the mystery and the contriving of the ending is over-complicated. But still jolly good!

I liked Mr. Grimwig better this time I think because of the way Vance did his voice -- he reminded me of Mr. Dick (from David Copperfield) somewhat. I guess it was the repeated use of his phrase "I will eat my head" reminds me of Mr. Dick's problem with King Charles the First's head :)

I also like that about Mr Grimwig, and hadn't picked up that similarity, but you're right Leslie! And I think I liked him partly because of the point at which he's introduced in the story.

This novel is so very bitter and condemnatory and much of the humour is from sarcasm and irony isn't it? So when we get a character like Grimwig it provides welcome light relief - it really is like a breath of fresh air.

Another one who fulfils that for me is Mr Bumble. Yes, he's a Bad Lot, deceitful, avaricious, duplicitous and more. But the part where he (view spoiler)[ proposes to Mrs Corney, after taking a careful inventory of her belongings is absolutely hilarious! In fact it's spread over two separated chapters, so there are even more opportunities for fun. I particularly like him moving his chair inch by inch around the round table. (hide spoiler)] Pure farce!

I'm so pleased you've enjoyed it too, John (didn't see how you couldn't really, despite what you called your "lack of Great Expectations"!) About a quarter of the way through I also thought Dickens had settled on Fagin as an out-an-out devil. We've talked about some of the satanic allusions already, but in this passage he seems barely human.

"As he glided stealthily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways, the hideous old man seemed like some loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime and darkness through which he moved: crawling forth by night, in search of some rich offal for a meal."

Yes, it's overcoloured and melodramatic. The hyperbole gets a bit much sometimes, and the sentimental speeches such as this one from Dick,""I heard them tell the doctor I was dying, "replied the child with a faint smile. "I am very glad to see you, dear; but don't stop!...I know the doctor must be right, Oliver, because I dream so much of Heaven, and Angels and kind faces that I never see when I am awake. "Kiss me!...Goodb'ye dear! God bless you"

Now even allowing for the time when it was written, this is not how a child would speak! No,it is entirely written for effect, to pull at our heart-strings, and very much the sort of thing Dickens would imagine performed on stage.

It has the faults of a young man's novel. He has not yet learnt how to tailor his passions to the purpose, and his characters are so often mouthpieces. Oliver himself, for instance doesn't always seem like a real person in his own right. He's so reactive and seems more of a character around which to rouse public anger against the treatment of poor children - a sort of Everyman.

But if you view it as Dickens's first proper novel, I think it's an amazing accomplishment! Those characters are still in our culture today. And he only got better!

Oh yes, the character you mean as neither all good nor all bad must be (view spoiler)[Nancy , I think John. She is continually troubled by her conflicting loyalties. (hide spoiler)]There are lots of instances - but I've gone on quite long enough for today!

How are you getting on with this book Tracey? You haven't visited this thread for a while :)

Whereas I like the Bumble stuff you refer to, and understand the point about Mr Grimwig (Wikipedia is good on OT incl MrG, as usual), the Bumble business seems organic, but MrG just seems to stick out like a sore thumb. He might have been better in The Pickwick Papers maybe. But, as usual, it's a matter of taste.

Think I lost half of my last post, so had to edit! I tend to be a bit circumspect about using Wikipedia, as there are mistakes there, as we all know. Still, it's worth having as a reminder!

Come to think of it I found a mistake in Wiki less than a week ago, when I was looking into positive examples of Dickens's attitude towards Jews. I had to go right back to the horse's mouth (Dickens's letters) to be sure. My comment 198 took quite a bit of research to be sure.

Jean - yes, an amazing achievement. And remember, plenty of authors carry on with mouthpiece characters past their early days. George Bernand Shaw's work, for one, suffers in this way.

An odd thought. I reckon Dickens would have liked Tim Burton's films!

John - I liked Shaw a lot when I was younger. Now I find he does pontificate a bit, being so keen to get his message across.

I tend to rate Dickens so highly, that when I come to read a piece by him I try to be as critical as possible. That's why I criticised the character of Oliver, as I don't feel he is entirely consistent. It's very refreshing that it's someone else coming to Dickens's defence though :D

I do actually think he got a lot better at it, so that the characters are much more consistent from the start, and not just vessels to demonstrate social injustice. I'm afraid I do think that Dickens would have liked to rewrite some of those early passages. Remember he was writing monthly parts of The Pickwick Papers , he'd had a lot of upheaval in his personal life , yet we still expect him to produce perfection straight off with no chance to edit? In his first novel? At 25? Yes he was a genius but not superhuman!

Fagin changes too, in my opinion, but he develops more - at first he's merely crafty and seems quite kind. Mind you, Dickens almost certainly had that idea all along and was duping the readers.

The hothead Grimwig I think is put in partly for light relief, but also as a device for Mr Brownlow to respond to. And to allow the story to increase in tension

"although Mr Grimwig was not by any means a bad-hearted man, and though he would have been unfeignedly sorry to see his respected friend duped and deceived, he really did most earnestly and strongly hope at that moment, that (view spoiler)[Oliver Twist might not come back." (hide spoiler)]

So at that point the reader is sitting waiting with the two of them as the hours pass.

The best characters are the minor ones, I think. And there are some wonderful cameos, as we might expect from the author who wrote Pickwick.

Don't you just love the dog, Bullseye?

"Mr Sikes's dog, having faults of temper in common with his owner, and labouring, perhaps at this moment, under a powerful sense of injury...fixed his teeth in one of the halfboots."

and after the part you mention, John, about the devil with his greatcoat on,

"Apparently the dog had been somewhat deceived by Mr Fagin's outer garment; for as the Jew unbuttoned it, and threw it over the back of a chair, he retired to the corner from which he had risen: wagging his tail as he went, to show that he was as well satisfied as it was in his nature to be."

There's a lot of real life in that dog!

Jean - I personally prefer Hardy and Austen, but - relax - surely no-one can argue with the FACT that Dickens and Shakespeare are our greatest writers.

Hardy's early books are really not a patch on his middle and later period, are they? But one doesn't have to apologise for them. Same with Dickens.

I still don't think Fagin is anything but evil from beginning to end, only falsely kind for a purpose. And Brownlow could have had another friend to fulfill the role you define for him.

Still, we can agree about Bullseye.

And that Dickens was a genius!

LOL John! I do wonder sometimes how much of her writing Austen screwed up and threw away. Only 6 major novels. And the prose is so perfect it must have been edited to death. And didn't her sister throw all her letters away on her instructions?

Definitely agree about Hardy. Jude the Obscure is on my favourites shelf. As would Tess of the d'Urbervilles be if I made it a bit bigger. Yet I can't stand his patronising attitude in Under the Greenwood Tree . Hmm - this isn't working. I do like some of his earlier ones... but they aren't as "great". Of course he rated his poetry above all his fiction...

I think most authors improve on their earlier work. Most, but not all. And what about the poor "one-book" authors who must feel so threatened by their success that they never manage to write anything else.

Me "apologise" for Dickens? Never! He just got better. :D

Today I started to watch the TV mini-series from 1999 which I mentioned. Half an hour's drama so far and we have not yet reached the start of the novel! It's very good though :)

Austen - but what novels! For me, five almost perfect, with Northanger Abbey super, but different - on purpose, of course.

I like 'Greenwood', but I know what you mean. A Pair of Blue Eyes is another young man's novel, and I agree that Jude and Tess are top class. My next favourites are Mayor of Casterbridge, which always makes me cry, The Woodlanders, and The Trumpet Major, which I've read more than any other. So many!

I almost chose The Darkling Thrush as my Monday poem a few weeks ago. And Are You Treading on My Grave? (title not quite right, I think)

I wonder if re-writing is very often a good idea? I reckon more would be lost, and the author would be better off writing new stuff. Why did Evelyn Waugh bother to turn the Sword of Honour trilogy into a smooth hole? Pointless.

Is Keira good as Rose?

Whole, not hole!

But what about Far from the Madding Crowd ? Easily on a par with The Woodlanders and a little better than The Trumpet-Major in my view - although that may just be personal preference. I'm not that keen on...one whose name escapes me!! But I do like Two on a Tower very much, as it's so unusual, and Desperate Remedies I actually thought was better than A Pair of Blue Eyes though that was his first, I think, wasn't it?

I've never enjoyed anything I read by Waugh. Sorry, can't remember how well KK depicts Rose, but will let you know. Are you still reading A Tale of Two Cities ? I won't be getting to that one again for ages.

A Hardy-mad friend of mine, who actually moved to Dorchester on the strength of it - and worked as a volunteer at Max Gate - also rates The Mayor of Casterbridge as his best work. She has just come back from a Hardy poetry-reading weekend. I've not got into them so much really.

I think Far From The Madding Crowd was the first I ever read. Great, but I don't think I can stand the sheep going over the edge again, or Oak's proposal with his 'there I shall be, and there you shall be' or whatever. Never wanted to watch the brilliant Terence Stamp film version again either. Odd.

How can you not like Evelyn Waugh?

Twist took preference over A Tale Of Two Cities, and I'm only just seeing the trial of Charles D - ch 8, I think. Will resume tomorrow.

Do you have the original illustrations in your copies, anyone? The illustrations for Oliver Twist are by George Cruikshank, and are very different from those in The Pickwick Papers , but after Oliver Twist , Cruikshank never illustrated another Dickens work. They both remained friends through the 1840s until Cruikshank, who had been a heavy drinker, swung completely the other way. Dickens preferred a more moderate attitude, taking exception to what he saw as Cruikshank's fanatical ravings on temperance and the friendship collapsed.

In 1872, two years after Dickens's death, Cruikshank claimed that the plot and many of the characters from Oliver Twist had been his idea, a claim which Dickens's friend and biographer, John Forster, vehemently denied. And how strange to think that this claim had been made before, all those years earlier, by Seymour's widow about his illustrations for Pickwick.

I have been commenting on Oliver Twist elsewhere, but since those are "dead threads" so to speak, I shall cut and paste my thoughts here, slightly edited, so as not to lose them.

The Poor Law

As you know, Oliver Twist was originally published in monthly parts between Feb 1837 - Apr 1839, and this follows hot on the heels of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834. It seemed a good idea to read a bit about this.

Previously it had been the duty of the parishes to care for the poor through alms and taxes. They could either go to the parish workhouse or apply for "outdoor relief", which enabled them to live at home and work at outside jobs. But the new Poor Law of 1834 grouped parishes together into unions. Each union had a workhouse, and the only help available to poor people from then on was to become inmates in the workhouse.

As Dickens tells us with bitter sarcasm in chapter 2, the workhouse was little more than a prison for the poor. Civil liberties were denied, families were separated, and human dignity was destroyed. The inadequate diet instituted in the workhouse prompted his ironic comment that,

"all poor people should have the alternative... of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it."

The Workhouse

It has been suggested that Dickens might have exaggerated the conditions in the workhouses as part of his "persuasive literature" for effect.

I've been trying to find out if that's at all likely, and also if there's any actual workhouse which inspired the one in Oliver Twist. This book by Ruth Richardson, Dickens and the Workhouse: Oliver Twist and the London Poor might be worth a read. She wrote it after discovering that as a boy Dickens had lived within a mile of the "Cleveland Street Workhouse", which was very nearly demolished last year!

Part of the workhouse building continues to be maintained by the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and part of the site is also now occupied by Kier, the construction company responsible for demolishing the adjacent building. Some damage or loss of historical information may already have occurred while this was being sorted out, but it looks as if preservation of the original building is now settled.

Dickens lived in Cleveland Street from when he was nearly 3 to nearly 5 years old. But as we all know, Dickens's father was then arrested for debt and the family was forced to live inside the Marshalsea Debtors' Prison in Southwark.

The family returned to the same house in Norfolk/Cleveland Street several years later, when Dickens was nearly seventeen, and stayed until he was almost twenty. During that time, he was out at work as a young legal clerk, and training himself to become a shorthand court reporter.

Although it may have provided the idea, the Cleveland Street Workhouse was not the only model for the one in Oliver Twist though. Apparently he also based it on the Kettering Workhouse, in Northamptonshire, which he said had been his inspiration. The Kettering Workhouse's bad reputation for ill-treatment was apparently widely known.

Pictures of both the Cleveland Street workhouse, Dickens's childhood home, and some interesting articles (including a feature about a Dickens enthusiast from Toronto, Dan Calinescu stepping in to finance a blue plaque for the house) can be read by clicking here

Antisemitism and Fagin

The character of Fagin is introduced in the first chapters. One of the main criticisms of Oliver Twist has always been the antisemitism shown in the author's portrayal of Fagin as a "dirty Jew".

Sadly, it is in keeping with the time. Shakespeare had famously done this much earlier with Shylock in The Merchant of Venice in 1596, setting the play in 16th Century Venice, and it's disheartening to realise that even over 200 years later, that particular prejudice was still rife and actually ingrained into English society. With all great authors we hope that they will somehow manage to step outside the mores of their time, but maybe we expect too much.

Up to a point, Dickens did manage to do that - but only later. Apparently he expressed surprise, when the Jewish community complained about the stereotypical depiction of Fagin at the time Oliver Twist was written (1837). Dickens had befriended James Davis, a Jewish man, and when he eventually came to sell his London residence, he sold the lease of Tavistock House to the Davis family, as an attempt to make restitution. "Letters of Charles Dickens 1833-1870" include this sentence in the narrative to 1860.

"This winter was the last spent at Tavistock House...He made arrangements for the sale of Tavistock House to Mr Davis, a Jewish gentleman, and he gave up possession of it in September."

There is other additional evidence of a rethink, and we have to remember that Dickens was a very young man - still only 25 - when he wrote "Oliver Twist". When editing Oliver Twist for the "Charles Dickens edition" of his works, he eliminated most references to Fagin as "the Jew."

And in his last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend , (1864) Dickens created Riah, a positive Jewish character.

The character of Fagin was modelled on an actual person, a notorious Jewish fence by the name of Ikey Solomon. Dickens also sited him in a real location. Fagin's headquarters in Field-lane had been the location of the hide-out of the notorious eighteenth-century thief Jonathan Wild. Its shops were well known for selling silk handkerchiefs bought from pickpockets. Dickens' letters allude to some of his work being pilfered,

"when my handkerchief is gone, that I may see it flaunting with renovated beauty in Field-lane."

When referring to Fagin Dickens often uses symbols that are normally reserved for the Devil. When we first meet him, we find him roasting some sausages on an open fire, "with a toasting fork in his hand", which seems to be so important to Dickens that it is mentioned two more times in the course of the text. In the next chapter we find Fagin equipped with a fire-shovel. Also the term the merry old gentleman seems to be a euphemistic term for the Devil - in line with Old Harry, Old Nick, Old Scratch etc.

Jean this is taking forever to read. It's not that I don't like it once I settle to it it's great apart from the way overuse of the words 'the Jew' I counted 7 times on one random page !! Why not say Fagin? anyway I am now half way through my copy Oliver has been taken in by Mrs Maylie and Rose and the Doctor is in attendance. :)

Re "the Jew", we've discussed Fagin a lot in these comments, Tracey and I've found examples to show that Dickens was not anti-semitic. If you get time, have a glance through this thread. If not, then here's what I said in comment 198,

"When editing Oliver Twist for the "Charles Dickens edition" of his works, he eliminated most references to Fagin as "the Jew.""

I think you'll find the pace of the story picks up from the point where you are :)

Fagin as a personnification of Evil

Here are two quotations about Fagan - one to show his intentions and one as a rather highly-coloured (let's fact it, the whole novel is highly coloured and populist!) description of him.

"In short, the wily old Jew had the boy in his toils. Having prepared his mind, by solitude and gloom, to prefer any society to the companionship of his own sad thoughts in such a dreary place, he was now slowly instilling into his soul the poison which he hoped would blacken it, and change its hue forever."


"It seemed just the night when it befitted such a being as the Jew to be abroad. As he glided stealthily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways, the hideous old man seemed like some loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime and darkness through which he moved: crawling forth, by night, in search of some rich offal for a meal."

Dickens also provides us with a further interpretation, which I mentioned before. Victorian society placed a lot of value and emphasis on industry, capitalism and individualism. And who embodies this most successfully? Fagin - who operates in the illicit businesses of theft and prostitution! His "philosphy" is that the group’s interests are best maintained if every individual looks out for himself, saying,

"a regard for number one holds us all together, and must do so, unless we would all go to pieces in company."

This is indeed heavy irony on Dickens's part, and adds to Fagan's multi-layered personality. As I remember, there are clues in the novel that he has his origins in circus folk from Eastern Europe. Apart from the long cloak and flamboyant charades though, I haven't picked up any info as to that yet.

Sometimes Dickens seems to be saying that a good person will behave nobly and decently in whatever situation and circumstances. There are countless examples of "the noble poor". Nancy, however seems to indicate Dickens making a case for the opposite idea, that good people can be warped by bad experiences and fall into vice.

This is good psychology. It would be so easy for an author to take a stereotypical view of children having early influences which then inform their later behaviour and ethics to such a ridiculous extent that they all behave the same way. Dickens can be guilty of "persuasive literary techniques" yes; he likes to tell us what to think. But he is too great an author to put his characters into straitjackets for this purpose. Diversity of characterisation is one of his great strengths. He first showed this with his plethora of characters in The Pickwick Papers.

I didn't read anti semitism into Dickens writing just over use of the word like he also seems to do it when Master Bates is in the scene! but not so much other characters. :)

I am actually seeing Fagin as a comedic over the top character.

That's a really interesting interpretation Tracey! And yes, it fits Charley Bates, Mr Bumble, and a whole lot of other characters doesn't it? In a way every character is a gross exaggeration of a general type, stock figures, and sometimes over-simplistic - either all good or all bad.

The more I look into Dickens's life, the more evidence I find for a true basis of his fictitious characters. You can see that the real-life counterparts actually performed similar atrocious acts to those of their fictional counterparts. As well as Ikey Solomon and Jonathan Wild (my comment 236) there's also the ruthless magistrate, Mr. Fang. It turns out that he is entirely based on a real person who could well have been even more severe in reality than Dickens's Mr Fang (although don't you just love that name? LOL) In a letter dated June 3, 1837, Dickens wrote to his friend Thomas Haines,

"In my next number of Oliver Twist, I must have a magistrate...whose harshness and insolence would render him a fit subject to be "shewn up"...I have...stumbled upon Mr. Laing of Hatton Garden celebrity."

Allan Stewart Laing served as a police magistrate from 1820-1838, before being dismissed by the Home Secretary for what sounds like abuse of his power. Dickens even went so far as to ask Haines, an influential police reporter to smuggle him into the Hatton Garden office so he could get an accurate physical description of him! Dickens used to be a reporter before giving it up to write Oliver Twist as well as finishing off The Pickwick Papers , so perhaps he had the connections to make it quite an easy task for him.

So I'm wondering if many more of these comic or drastically exaggerated characters, such as Mr Bumble, Mrs Corney, Mrs. Sowerberry, etc. have their counterparts in reality and may not be exaggerations after all. Dickens had previously studied and sketched the office of beadle in "Sketches by Boz", so the character of Mr Bumble with his hypocritical, harsh behaviour could well have started with that.

I think we remember some of these characters for a long time after we have read the book. They are so vivid and powerful that they seem to adopted a life of their own, beyond the confines of the stories. And so, Fagin, Mr. Pickwick, Little Nell, Mr. Micawber and many others have actually become some sort of myth. They appeal to us and stimulate our imaginations. But also it might explain why when some people come to read Dickens they find him over-long.

On the other hand, Tracey, we took a whole month over The Pickwick Papers and I don't think either of us felt that was too long :) Perhaps it's because you are reading two other classic books at the same time this time round?

Jean in your overview of characters you forgot imo the best of all Miss Havisham. She was brilliantly imagined. Also I think I am distracted but in a good way by 'happenings' here with my trips to York etc. Another also yes 3 classics at once is too much but I am really liking them all. I am having a whole day on OT today that is when I pick a book up it will be that one.

Oh yes Tracey!!! I just picked the three which flashed into my mind but Miss Havisham is such an amazingly vivid character - far more so than "Little Nell"!

I had realised of course that the happenings in York would quite rightly be uppermost in your mind :) But if you can read more than one classic at a time then go for it! I just know that I can't! They have to be different sorts of books - and even then I find I like to stick to one for a bit.

It's still less than 2 weeks since we started Oliver Twist though, and I don't think I'd want to read it any faster to be honest. I've just read the most dramatic bit in the whole story now - wow!! I'm not surprised the females fainted in the aisles when Dickens did his readings of that!!

Some more thoughts about the events very near the end of the book, so I'll use spoilers.

Fagin's guilt

(view spoiler)[Fagin is inciting Sikes. He is dissembling when he urges him to be, "not too violent for safety" because in the paragraph before, Dickens has told us,

"They [Fagin and Sikes] exchanged one brief glance; there was a fire in the eyes of both, which could not be mistaken... Fagin, showing that he felt all disguise was now useless..."

Clearly no words needed to be said on what was to be done - merely the manner and self-control needed in doing it "safely". Earlier in the chapter we had been privy to Fagin's changed views of Nancy; how he now "hated and distrusted" her. Plus there was a lot of preparatory build-up and incitement in the conversation with Sikes. (hide spoiler)]

Bullseye

At the beginning we were told that Bullseye had "faults of temper in common with his owner". By this amusing quip Dickens makes the dog a symbolic emblem of his owner's character. He is vicious, just as Sikes has an animal-like brutality.

(view spoiler)[I was intrigued by the idea of the eyes of his victim which followed Sikes round, and the fact that his dog was named "Bullseye". At that point Bullseye had come to represent Sikes's own guilt. Sikes came to fear his dog betraying him. At first it was that Bullseye might tread bloody pawprints about. Although the dog ran away from Sikes' trying to destroy him initially, it was partly due to Bullseye being seen in his old haunts that Sikes was finally apprehended, and of course the image of Nancy's eyes continued to haunt Sikes right until the end. (hide spoiler)]

Go Dickens! The inimitable and the innovator!

Blathers and Duff

Yet another example of Dickens's light relief is in his inclusion of these two detectives. I had previously thought that Inspector Bucket in Bleak House in 1852 was the earliest example Dickens wrote of a police detective.

But this creation of the duo dates, from 1837! And that means it is even earlier than The Murders in the Rue Morgue which was written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1841! That is usually credited as the first example of a fictional detective, and in England The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins which was later in 1868. The first mention of Sherlock Holmes by Conan Doyle, Sir Arthur which is often cited was actually considerably later in 1887.

I'm sticking to Dickens unless anyone finds an earlier example :)

I finished reading Oliver Twist yesterday. Today I'm writing my review, which will hopefully be ready to post soon :)

Jean so excited I am going to finish OT today and woo woop for Book the third this is more like it. :)

I have now finished and posted my analytical review of the book here . I hope anyone else who's been reading it will also enjoy my review :)

And I'll happily chat about Oliver Twist with anyone, whether they're still reading or not.

Jean - just read your very illuminating OT review- thank you. The hypothesis of a 'light relief' relationship between Oliver Twist and Pickwick when both were being written at the same time sounds very plausible. As does the lightening of Oliver Twist when Pickwick was done with.

Just finished A Tale of Two Cities, which I know is not on your list until next year. I thought it less good than Pickwick and Oliver Twist (sorry, Tracey). Possibly because the historical reality behind it, and the long time-scale destroyed the dramatic unity of the whole, maybe as in some Shakespeare plays. I seem to see more and more parallels between the two authors the more I read them. Still, give me these, with their exuberant excesses, over the tightly-constructed productions of Racine and Corneille, whom the French think greater, any day.

John - thank you! The idea that Dickens's routine was to write his difficult "Oliver Twist" passages first, comes from a biography of him Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley. Generally I like Peter Ackroyd on Dickens, but she also has some interesting facts.

The idea about the consequent lightening of mood in Oliver Twist after the serialisation of The Pickwick Papers had finished was my own theoretical deduction, though.

I personally think Dickens's historical novels are his weakest. Sorry - I know nothing about French literature, save the few novels I've read in translation.

I'm so pleased you enjoyed this more than you'd expected to, John, especially since you said this was one of your two Dickens "hates"!

Did you want to say any more about the character you said earlier was neither wholly good nor wholly bad? You said you'd wait, so it sounded as if you had something you wanted to share with us there...

Yes, but nothing profound - clearly Nancy is the 'grey' character, and this makes it the more sad. She clear-sightedly knows she cannot break away from her past and from her love for the abusive Sikes, when we are all longing for her to do so. Drama is always more powerful when characters have a mixture of positive and negative characteristics, and when there is, therefore, uncertainty about their future. Free will comes in rather than pre-destination almost.

I wish Nancy and Bullseye had escaped. This would have suggested that people could escape from the cesspit, even if they hadn't 'good blood' in them. Odd that Dickens almost determines that Oliver's 'blood will out'. Slightly distasteful, maybe?

I agree John, and find it the most moving and difficult part of the book to read. Given that this is installment writing, I wonder if the end of Nancy's story was not in Dickens's mind for very long before he wrote it.

It must have been a bit like writing for a soap opera (or drama serial) nowadays, where audience feedback determines how the story develops. For instance, if people don't like a continuing character, the writer can kill them off, and write something else into the story. Similarly, Dickens kept a close eye on how people were reacting to his monthly episodes, and he wrote to very tight deadlines. We also know that the general public were shocked at his writing about thieves and prostitutes as "real people" with real feelings.

So (I'm conjecturing here) is it so much of a leap to think that Dickens felt pressure to make Nancy (view spoiler)[ come to a bad end because she was a prostitute? He might, like us, have preferred to give her a better conclusion, but wimped out. (hide spoiler)]

The part about Bullseye is just so very sad. I love that spunky dog, and we all know that dogs can be loyal to the most despicable people. I have to keep reminding myself that he is a symbol, mirroring Sikes's inhuman brutality.

The shock to the general public: do you know what the 'general public' consisted of? How low down the social scale was there a literate constituency of readers of part-works? I thought sales were enormous? Not low enough down to have been in the same shoes as Nancy, I suppose, then?